governor romney agreed with obama, that taxes on the high-income folks had to go up. so the challenge on the republican side, and it is tough, is folks like kevin mccarthy did get elected. and in his district, his no-tax pledge worked for him. these guys are in a very tough spot because they know at the end of the day they're going to have to raise these taxes. but doing so will cause an immense amount of political pain. that's why in my view, it's probably likely that we won't get a deal before january 1st. but on january 3rd, the senate sends a bill over. where now we're voting on a bill to lower taxes. the norquist pledge becomes irrelevant. in fact, they comply with the norquist pledge by voting for a bill that would provide tax relief for 98% of americans. so i just think this is a very difficult political situation on the republican side. you know, the speaker clearly knows that revenues have to go up. and he doesn't have the leverage now. and we're back into brinksmanship politics. but bottom line, the cliff is really much more a slope, and we can act on this ideally